1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a system and method to facilitate compliance with a prescribed medical regimen and ensure integrity of the prescribed medical regimen, and more particularly, to a system and method to monitor the patient usage of drugs prescribed by the patient's physician and to verify that a prescription meets reasonable standards for the drug involved.
2. Prior Art
Noncompliance with a prescribed medical regimen, especially the inaccurate use of prescription drugs, is one of the main reasons for most outpatient treatment failure, as well as a cause of serious, life threatening medical complications.
The seriousness of the problem has been long recognized by the medical community. Numerous studies have been undertaken in an effort to identify the causes of noncompliance of a medication regimen. Various causes identified by these studies include forgetfulness, number of medications prescribed, unclear instructions or a lack of written instructions, side effects of the medication, cost of the medication, inconvenient or complex dosing schedules, lack of a primary health care physician, or lack of prescribed medication information given by the primary health care physician.
In attempts to overcome one or more of these causes, various equipment and systems have been devised. Examples of such systems can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,954 which combines a special drug dispenser to be used by a patient in conjunction with a system which monitors the usage of the drugs by the patient. Another system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,542 wherein patients are automatically contacted by automatic telephone dialing and voice synthesizing equipment to remind them that their prescriptions need to be refilled. U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,238 discloses a system linking the physician, pharmacists, patient, and care provider for the purpose of monitoring medication usage and patient wellness. However, the various prior art systems have proven to be workable only in controlled environments. Even then they leave unsolved many of the numerous other causes of noncompliance.
A second problem relating to medical regimens is lack of easy checking procedures to determine if a prescription complies with a recommended regimen. Currently, the U.S. FDA publishes a Generic Product Identifier (GPI) which is a listing of available drugs coded by their generic chemical composition and a National Drug Code (NDC) which is a listing of available drugs coded by their trade names. However, neither the GPI nor the NDC contain drug reaction information. There does exist a collection of studies which describe known reactions for certain drugs. This collection of studies is referred to herein as the Knowledge Base Drug Code (KDC). In addition, there are other studies which have established classes based on composition of the components which make up a drug. However, a compilation of this available information has not been assembled for easy use.
Thus, there remains in the medical community the need for a system, and a method of using the system, that better ensures that a treating physician will be aware of all medications that a patient may be taking, that informs the treating physician of possible drug interactions or drug dosage and administering duration that are outside of recommended ranges, that permits contacting the patient when his medication is due regardless of where the patient may be located at that moment, that assists the treating physician in prescribing not only the best medication, but also a dosage and duration that is within recommended ranges, as well as a system that streamlines the number of medications that the patient is taking, and that incorporates automatic mail ordering, billing, and other business aspects of prescribing a medical regimen.